Are Tomatoes Bad For The Gut
It turns out that some gastrointestinal and digestive health issues require the avoidance of some of our beloved veggies. When it comes to digestive health issues, vegetables belonging to the Nightshade family are best to be limited if not avoided completely. For some people dealing with gut issues nightshade vegetables cause inflammation and can aggravate chronic illnesses even though they’re good for you. Sadly tomatoes are number one on the list of vegetables that can cause irritation or damage to the gut.
The good news is that tomatoes don’t seem to negatively affect people with a healthy gut so it’s not exactly that tomatoes are bad for the gut so much as bad for those with gut issues. Too much of anything, even if it’s a good thing, can be a bad thing. Our body doesn’t always need a constant source of nutrients from tomatoes. This is why there are serving sizes to let us know how much is enough and how much is too much.
Vegetables Belonging To The Nightshade Family
For people with gut issues, nightshade vegetables are known to cause inflammation, as well as causing flare ups of the joints, digestive symptoms, and inflammatory diseases such as Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), joint issues, digestive issues, autoimmune diseases. It is the alkaloids that naturally occur in the nightshade vegetables that aggravate the intestinal lining and it can worsen inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
Lectins, a protein found in nightshade plants that can add to the damage done to the intestinal barrier causing or worsening leaky gut syndrome. Lectins are also found in beans and corn so those are two more veggies to keep off your plate. This protein binds to the cells that line the intestines and they disrupt the tight junctions between the intestinal cells which also contributes to leaky gut.
It is good to know what you can, can’t, should, and shouldn’t eat when dealing with any health issue that can be triggered or affected by foods, beverages, and/or ingredients. Not only do you have to avoid set foods but you also have to avoid foods that contain specific ingredients as well. For instance, someone with leaky gut should avoid tomatoes and every food that contains tomato-based products along with foods that only have a little bit of tomato.
Digestive health and gastrointestinal symptoms are all relatively similar to one another, making it difficult to diagnose, as well as, finding the root cause. Avoiding foods that trigger symptoms is important because the more gut conditions are triggered the harder it is going to be to heal. Our gut houses over half of our immune system and we need our immune response to be in top shape in order to defend us from germs and things that can cause harm. Treating our gut can treat our entire body.